What happened to the aid?

I looked outside while sipping coffee with Mara Los Santos in her home on the highway near La Lima. Banana fields that were ruined in November by Hurricane Mitch stretched into the distance, providing a dreary backdrop to the dozens of shacks hastily crafted from scavenged lumber and plastic. Children played soccer on half of the four-lane highway that Los Santos and her neighbors had seized for a living space as they waited for the mud to dry on what remained of their devastated houses.

Despite their predicament, Los Santos and her neighbors didn't seem like victims. They were simply too organized, too hopeful and too hospitable to evoke pity.